


The Story of Wild Tiger

by morphaileffect



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-29
Updated: 2011-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/morphaileffect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for mienai_hoshi, simply_kim and khursten on lj.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Story of Wild Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> for mienai_hoshi, simply_kim and khursten on lj.

_"Barnaby! Behind you!!"_

Her tiny fist shattered the expensive 9-year-old solid gold monument standing between them with one blow, and she was able to get to him in time.

Before Barnaby could even turn around to see what she was calling his attention to, she had shot an explosive arrow from the gun on her left arm brace, straight into a vital point of the android about to plunge its claws into his back.

The shock of the explosion behind him made Barnaby lose balance. He started to plummet mid-jump. 

Although that would mean that on top of saving his life just now, Kaede would have had to catch him and princess-carry him to safety. 

That would just not do.

He moderated his speed and trajectory, and managed to land in a safe spot. Through the noise of fire crackling in the wind and shrapnel hitting concrete, he could hear Kaede asking if he was all right.

Then there was canned music, and cheering from the crowd that had gathered around the crime scene. That tune was familiar enough: it was Hero TV announcing that the Heroes had finished rounding up the bad guys. Their fight was over.

Sky High was the one who got the most bad guys, of course.

Kaede got an android. That was worth at least 200 points.

But neither she nor Barnaby caught any of the human operators alive.

Barnaby's own score during that mission was zero.

 _"What was that?!"_  he heard Kaede yelling. "You had an operator in your line of sight! He was  _wide open!"_

Barnaby sighed, then turned toward her. She was walking toward him in her Apollon Media-issued skinsuit and armor, arms and legs making wide arcs in a familiar pissed-off swagger. A crowd had begun to gather around them, drawn in by her energy.

"Are you seriously angry at me?" he calmly challenged. "You were launching yourself at a cluster of androids all by yourself, and you still expected me to think about points?"

"Who asked you to help?" When she was angry, her voice rose a pitch higher and sounded more comical, even if Barnaby could tell her ire was genuine.

"Nobody asked me," Barnaby answered. "I was just looking out for my partner."

"Well, thanks to you, PARTNER, we lost a catch. And you didn't exactly save me, did you? They scattered when I took a shot, and the other Heroes got them. You were far away when all that happened!"

"I -"

"Face it." She folded her arms across her slender chest. "You're just too slow, old man."

Some of the people in the crowd tittered. If caught by the cameras, those titters would be exaggerated 100 times to full-blown guffaws. As a veteran showbiz executive, a part-time CEO of Apollon Media, Barnaby knew that well.

And despite himself, Barnaby was piqued. So this was how it felt. To be talked down to by someone younger, faster, and more driven.

 _"Look."_  His voice rose even if he didn't want it to. He did his best to level it again, and hoped the cameras focused on them now didn't catch that. "You were in danger. I abandoned the target to get to you. I signed up to be a Hero - I didn't sign up to look after a stubborn little girl who doesn't even have the least bit of sense in her head."

"And I didn't sign up to be treated like a baby!" she screamed, stomping a foot, fists balled at her sides. "We're partners, so start acting like one!"

Barnaby stayed silent. No matter what she did, and no matter how close to anger she could bring him, she could not infuriate him - not really. He would catch his blood pressure rising and then, almost against his will, he would remember how small and frail she is, and the rage would dissipate.

He knew that no matter how tough she acted, she would seek him out later. If not within the day, then sometime soon. And she would be sorry. She would sometimes say it, and she would sometimes be very awkward saying it, or she would just take it to account that he could forgive her anything and pretend like nothing happened.

She threw her hands up in the face of his unresponsiveness. "Whatever," she spat. "At least the bad guys didn't win today."

She stalked off, back to the sidecar they shared. She would detach her bike, and ride it all the way back to Apollon Media headquarters. Trailing her was an antigrav newsbot excitedly babbling about how the Lovely Crusher of Justice, Wild Tiger, had brushed off her incompetent, washed-up partner yet again.

She would leave him standing in the middle of the damage she caused, and the wreckage of the points they did not earn, while the crowd dispersed.

***

After three more months of this, he was wondering why he agreed to do it in the first place.

He had been better off without the Hero act. Or so he thought. Buying stock in Apollon Media and climbing up the corporate ladder kept him busy when he retired, five years ago. (He figured he must have some sort of latent business sense. And not having Maverick around to screw that up was a definite advantage.)

There were, after all, ways to hunt down Ouroboros even if he wasn't a Hero anymore. He was still a NEXT - a young, strong, and vengeful one - and he found that he had even more time and resources for his personal vendettas when he wasn't in the public eye.

But a certain young woman came knocking on his doors. On all their doors. And like the rest of them, he caved.

 _"I'm here to continue my father's fight,"_  she had said, eyes shining in a way that was so familiar it captivated him.  _"And I know he'd wanted to fight for you too, Barnaby."_  She'd said a lot of other things, but in the end it all meant  _I'm going to make it as a Hero with or without you, but it would go so much more easily if I had your help._

She was fourteen, going on fifteen. Compared to her, he was ancient. But he saw in her the same consuming fire he saw when he looked in the mirror, many years after his own parents' death.

"Do you think," he ventured asking, "she'd be better off without a partner?"

The first person - in fact the  _only_  person - he had to talk this over with was Rock Bison, who had been Kaede's guardian since she was nine years old. In accordance with Kaede's wishes, Bison - Antonio, out of uniform - had groomed her for Hero life, and when she felt she was ready, he went with her to the Apollon Media offices, so she could present herself as a Hero in an age when  _real_  Heroes were most needed.

Antonio did not like what he was hearing. "Are you thinking of quitting on her?" he asked gruffly.

Antonio was older, tireder, weighed down by a full lifetime of losses. But he still took up arms when his best friend's child called upon him to do so. He donned a new uniform as Rock Bison and returned to being a Hero for her sake.

 _That's not it, Bison-san. I'm thinking of protecting her from the sidelines. I'm thinking of going back to hunting down Ouroboros from the shadows. I'm thinking this was a mistake._

"I just don't know how much help I am," Barnaby said aloud. "She has the numbers. She doesn't even have to get a lot of points to be popular. She makes everyone want to be a Hero."

Antonio had a soft heart. Barnaby knew it as well as any other Hero from their generation. But he didn't make a habit of wearing it on his sleeve.

"All that matters is that you're there for her." The tone of Antonio's voice was not reassuring, or comforting, in the least. "We all came back because we want to support Kaede in this. The way Koutetsu would have wanted."

Something twisted inside Barnaby at the mention of that name.

"You're right," Barnaby said emptily. "You're right, of course."

***

His secretary announced that she was waiting outside his office. He let her wait.

When it was time to go home, he found her still in the waiting room. She was in civilian wear. She did not have her protective skinsuit on, which might have alarmed him under any other circumstance...

But it was nighttime. And she looked contrite. And it was refreshing to see her out of the skinsuit now and then.

He stood a good distance from her, waiting for her to speak first first. She fidgeted, looked at the floor, pushed a lock of reddish-brown hair behind one ear.

"Ivan-san patted me on the head," she said without looking at him.

That was one thing Barnaby could say was admirable about her, and her father before her: they were the same in front of the cameras or outside of it. While she could be a big bossy pain in the neck while being a Hero, she never pretended to be anything she was not.

And what she was, was a young woman. Fourteen going on fifteen. Orphaned at an early age, finding it hard to trust other people.

Right now, she didn't like it, but she needed his help.

She was out of her skinsuit, and that meant she wanted to touch him.

One touch wouldn't hurt, right?

Except it was never so simple, with Kaede. A "touch," when she asked for it, meant she wanted his NEXT ability. The lightest contact of skin to skin meant she would be able to call upon his "Hundred Power" when she needed to, until the next time she copied someone else's skill.

And Barnaby had to be the last person she touched, every time she came into contact with anyone else, and her specially designed skinsuit failed to protect her. She  _had_  to have his power as a default, because it was her father's power. Because it was the only thing about her father, besides his name, that she had left.

The fashion of the times for young women her age meant she showed entirely too much skin for Barnaby's comfort - her bare arms were exposed, and her legs all the way up to the middle of the thighs. He could touch her on the shoulder and it would be all she needed.

It would have been fine.

But when he stepped up to her, his hand went to her face. And she leaned into the warmth of his palm as if it made everything about this horrible day better.

(It was like this, every time. Every touch felt like she wanted to sink into him and never come back out.)

He couldn't help but remember her father when she was this close. Not too long ago, Wild Tiger's story was that of an aging hero desperately clinging to the things he loved, his reasons to live.

But Wild Tiger had a different story now: that of a little girl who won't let her father die.


End file.
